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rhodesian history The Journal of The Central Africa Historical Association Volume 9 1978 N. M. N. RALUSHAI Traditions concerning Luvhimbi and the Mbedzi I. C. LAMBA British commerce as an anti-slavery device in Malawi J. M. MACKENZIE Responsible Government I. R. HANCOCK Capricorn Africa Society H. H. PATEL Asian political activity in Rhodesia Notes, Documents and Revisions Essay Review Reviews Bibliography _ RHODESIAN HISTORY The Journal of the Central Africa Historical Association Edited by R. S. Roberts and P. R. Warhurst Volume 9 1978 Further traditions concerning Luvhimbi and the Mbedzi. N. M. N. RALUSHAI .............................................................................. 1 British commerce as an anti-slavery device in Malawi in the 1870s and 1880s: A study in miscalculated strategy. I. C. LAMBA — 13 Southern Rhodesia and Responsible Government. J. M. MACKENZIE ........................................ 23 The Capricorn Africa Society in Southern Rhodesia. I. R. HANCOCK .............................................................................. 41 Asian political activity in Rhodesia from the Second World War to 1972. H. H. PATEL 63 NOTES, DOCUMENTS AND REVISIONS Cecil Rhodes: Some documents and reflections. G. SHEPPERSON 83 Firearms as a factor in Manyika politics from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. H. H. K. BHILA __ __ __ 91 A difference of opinion in the Colonial Office, 1893. S. B. STEVENSON _ _ _ _ ...... __ 99 ESSAY REVIEW The Tonga and the anthropologists. T. I. MATTHEWS_ __ 115 REVIEWS __ „ _ _ ...... 123 R. BLAKE, A History of Rhodesia by P. R. Warhurst; A. F. ISAAC- MAN, The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique by P. R. Warhurst; M. GELFAND, A Non-Racial Island of Learning: A History of the University College of Rhodesia by T. O. Ranger; J. P. L. WALLIS and F. R. BRADLOW, Thomas Baines by R. S. Roberts; C. BLACK, The Legend of Lomagurtdi by R. S. Roberts; E. WASON, Banned by R. E. M. Songore. BIBLIOGRAPHY io o NEWS 131 Rhodesian History (1978), IX. BRITISH COMMERCE AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY DEVICE IN MALAWI IN THE 1870s AND 1880s: A STUDY IN MISCALCULATED STRATEGY* I. C. L amba University of Malawi, Chancellor College D u r in g t h e n in e t e e n t h cantury the Industrial Revolution in Britain, as in other parts of Europe, intensified the search for sources of raw materials and markets abroad. The visit to Central Africa in 1859 of Livingstone and John Kirk led to the conviction that Malawi offered such economic opportuni­ ties and potential;' Livingstone in fact saw the British as destined for 'the largest [commercial] stake in the African Continent’.2 The British, however, misread the Malawian situation with the result that their commercial strate­ gies in the region were equally miscalculated. In Central Africa, the function of British commerce, as advocated by Livingstone, was to go beyond mere commercial dealings and become the necessary means for the destruction of the slave trade. As in many parts of Africa, a complex situation existed in Malawi, Swahili commerce posed the greatest challenge to British economic enterprise; and since Swahili Arab commerce took much of its strength from the slave trade, it was only prud­ ent for the British to destroy the slave trade as a means of weakening the Swahili Arab commercial dominance. In pursuance of her official anti­ slavery policy, Britain willingly made available financial aid, albeit small, to any private British exploration abroad likely to lead eventually to commer­ cial expansion overseas under the banner of ‘anti-slavery crusaders’. It was in this spirit that the British proclaimed a subtle negrophile humanitarianism, the ultimate beneficiary of which would be British capitalists. However, the British anti-slavery commercial strategy in Malawi never succeeded in oust­ ing the Arab factor. To the capitalist humanitarians British commerce stood as one of the most subtle and hopeful anti-slavery devices; for, while Christianity re­ presented an alien moral and religious concept to the Africans, trade was an * Research for this paper was generously funded by the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan. 1 J. Kirk, ‘Report on the natural products and capabilities of the Shire and lower Zambesi Valleys’, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1861-2), VI, O.S. 25-35. 2 D. and C. Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tribu­ taries, and of the Discovery of the Lakes Chiluia and Nyasa 1858-1864 (New York, Harper Brothers, 1866), 8. 13 14 COMMERCE AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY DEVICE old occupation among the Maravi and Yao and so likely to be accepted as a continuation of the Africans’ commercial life. Moreover, British enterprise in this form was regarded by the humanitarians as a potent instrument for social change capable of striking at the root of the slave traffic — uncivilized life. The yardstick of African society’s progress towards civilization was the amount of the European goods purchased. The value of trade was to stimulate the African’s mind through commercial intercourse and the encouragement of an efficient division of labour;3 and the British after displacing the Arabs would, so it was argued, ultimately unite the Africans against the competi­ tive slave trade. Common in nineteenth-century Britain, this pattern of thinking originated from the belief that the Africans’ own trade was of an atavistic and disrup­ tive nature which promoted divisiveness and inhibited any feelings of inter­ dependence between tribes. This alleged isolation was thought to be responsi­ ble for tribal animosities that created fertile conditions for the growth of the slave trade. British theorists never associated the slave trade with ethnic and class conflicts which often set one African group or family against another. British commerce, with its transforming power as a ‘social’ agency would turn Africans ‘into a body corporate of nations, no one member of which can suffer without the other suffering with it’.4 A ready and eager Afri­ can acceptance of legitimate commerce was generally assumed in humanitarian circles and no consideration was given to any adverse effects that the suppres­ sion of the slave trade or the introduction of ‘legitimate’ commerce might have upon African life. The proponents of legitimate trade attacked the in­ dependence of the traditional socio-political systems where slave holding represented an important symbol of status and power. For the chiefs to em­ brace a commerce demanding renunciation of ‘slavery’, however, was tanta­ mount to destroying their own social foundations. Little did the British understand the operation of slavery in African society. For example, domestic slavery and its closely allied clientage system represented devices among some African peoples for absorbing, assimilating and socializing other ethnic groups or their remnants into social cohesion. It thus also had the positive effect of turning Africans into what Livingstone called ‘a body corporate’. In sum, African slavery and the slave trade posed the greatest obstacle and challenge to any planned British commercial imperialism in the continent. The advocacy of British commerce in Malawi embraced a wide variety of interests ranging from missionary to adventurer. To the missionaries, a Sec, for example, F. Holmwood, Introduction to J. F. Elton, Travels and Re­ searches among the Lakes and Mountains of Eastern Africa, ed. H. B. CotteriU (London, J. Murray, 1879), 19-20: ‘there is a trait in the character of Africans generally which has done much to keep them in a universal state of barbarism . it is a disinclination to any settled employment no matter what the incentive to labour . a consequence of generations of slavery’. * Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition, 28. 1. C. LAMBA .13 since their arrival in 1875, it was clear from the Africans’ religious and com­ mercial background that material wants preceded Christian spiritual needs. This assessment was shared by both Stewart and Laws of Livingstonia;5 and the missionaries had to meet the Africans’ material needs. In order that Christianity be propagated, missionaries in fact became the strongest ad­ vocates of British commercial imperialism. African chiefs could be won to Christendom only after they had seen the material benefits likely to accrue from the new faith; and the support of the chiefs was crucial to the success of any foreign economic enterprise. Stewart believed in the inseparability of religion and secular commerce. In a long and significant letter to the Livingstonia Committee in Glasgow, appealing for a trading company, Stewart emphasized his stand: No sermons or daily lectures on the benefits of industry and the sin of idleness would accomplish one twentieth part of the good that would be achieved by a simple depot of goods here [Malawi], where people could get what they want in return for what they have . What is the use of talking to a man in this state [of poverty] about things utterly beyond his comprehension at first; and assuring him that you are his friend, and that you seek his good, when you cannot supply him with the very simplest means of raising him above the state in which you find him? If a man is naked . give him calico and not words.6 Ironic yet pragmatic, such an argument had its base beyond mere commer­ cial considerations of the African’s welfare. Quite a significant factor was the growing Arab and Yao commercial activity which at this time seriously threatened British attempts to spread their influence. The continued African response to Arab trade was evident in 1876, when the Yao at the Lake openly declared: ‘We can get anything from the Arabs we want. We can get nothing from you. They are our friends even though they sometimes take away our people.’7 Also of course, there was the Portuguese trade, active south of the Swahili Arab commercial zone.

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